Tongue Burn, Tongue Afire, Raw-tongue... What is WRONG?!

[Mister Moo]

Attention rookies. I used to think tongue burn and cheek-fire were normal when smoking a pipe - 1972, Germany.

Since the internet I learned that tongue burn is, more often than not, a symptom of a mechanical problem (smoking and/or bowl-filling technique or, rarely, pipe design) or too moist a tobacco.

1. Ribbon/shag cut tobacco moistness. Squish a clump between your fingers and if:

1. it flattens and stays flat, way too moist
2. it crunches and turns to dust, way too dry; or
3. it spring back quickly, probably just right.

2. Flake moistness on the 1-3 Moo Flake Scale. Bend a flake in half and if:

1. it bends like rubber and nothing breaks, it is too wet
2. it snaps like a fresh Saltine it is way too dry; or
3. about 50% of the flake fractures at the bend it's probably just right

It is easier to give a filled pipe a little extra moosh than it is to relieve a clogged bowl or airway. Avoid filling a pipe more tightly than to offer a very slight resistance to a sip of air before lighting. After lighting the bowl will probably go out; tamp it gently - to slight resistance - and relight. Be sure that, as you smoke, most ribbons and virtually all flakes will expand in a matter of seconds-to-minutes; flakes can expand quite a bit. No matter what you're smoking, if you tamp too hard it will plug the bowl more or less. If you overcompress most flakes they will almost certainly stop airflow. HERE"S THE DEAL: as soon as a bowl is overcompressed (i.e. tamped too firmly) your pipe-sucker mechanism goes into over drive as, for no good reason the pipe keeps going out. So, with a need for a relight or not, you begin power-puffing. Worst case scenario? Doing this will gradually cause the insides of your cheeks to unravel and/or make your tongue feel like it has been sandpapered with gasoline.

What do we learn from all this?

a. excessively dry tobacco burns hot/harsh even in a pipe with light draw; and excessively moist tobacco may create steam and, for sure, a wad of tobacco that is very easy to overcompress. Either way you end up with a sore tongue

b. fill/tamp a bowl with a light enough touch that it never resists your draw much more than straw in glass of water. With experience you may be able to tighten things up much more and still have an easy smoke but, if you already have a sore tongue, let that thought perish for about a year or two.

c. if the heel of your pipe gets swampy looking (or if smoke ends up with a wad of wet tobacco in the heel) you need to give that pipe a good rest. Wet pipes end up tasting sour and encourage problems with tobacco overcompression. With new pipe that ends up wet (fast) there is a lot to be said for smoking half-bowls for a while. Half bowls means half the moisture getting into the heel and, given a drier pipe, a more rapid formation of cake (with helps manage both moisture and heat).

Rarely we encounter a pipe that simply has too small an airway (either in the pipe itself or, more commonly, somewhere in the stem). Like Hank Hill's narrow urethra, you can complain about it... or fix it. In most cases a hand-held/twisted 5/32" bit can open a pipe shank, pipe airhole or pipestem.

Symptoms of a too-small airway or a distorted/irregular airway include a pipe that whistles when you blow through it (empty, of course) or, typically, a pipe that is chronically wet in the bowl or, more likely, inside the stem. Wetness always occuring in the stem can usually be resolved, by the way, with a small smoothing- or opening modification on the tenon.

Tongue-burn sucks but it can be defeated with small improvements in technique which, by the way, lead to more smoke with slwer puffing and much less effort - no effort at all, really. Anyone else with tips on how to avoid rookie tongue-bite, please follow...

[commonsenseman]

Attention rookies. Tongue-burn sucks.

Do you have any thoughts on chemical tongue burn, PH issues, different types of tobaccos, etc.?

[Emperor Zurg]

Thanks for posting this.
I have another round of experimenting to do.

[Mister Moo]

Do you have any thoughts on chemical tongue burn, PH issues, different types of tobaccos, etc.?

I never experienced it and never knew anyone firthand who has.

I keep hearing about perique allergy (I'd rather have the brain disease than perique allrergy) and possible ph issues but, again, no firsthand information. Feel free to add what you know.

[Mister Moo]

Thanks for posting this.
I have another round of experimenting to do.

I can't remember what you were smoking, Zurgs, but B&M aromatics from the big big jar are usually PG soaked and sometimes impossible to dry during our lifetimes. They always smell wonderful but they are ofetn on the soggy side and easily over-smooshed in the pipe. Thee are passable alternatives like Carter Hall, sweet smelling and tasty, if you sre willing to soil yourself and your pipe with drugstore burley.

[Emperor Zurg]

I can't remember what you were smoking, Zurgs, but B&M aromatics from the big big jar are usually PG soaked and sometimes impossible to dry during our lifetimes. They always smell wonderful but they are ofetn on the soggy side and easily over-smooshed in the pipe. Thee are passable alternatives like Carter Hall, sweet smelling and tasty, if you sre willing to soil yourself and your pipe with drugstore burley.

I smoke a very limited number of aromatics. Some of my favorite weed, in no particular order; Nightcap, EMP, HH ODF, Dan BBBB, SPC offerings, GL Pease English offerings (Gaslight is awesome), Margate, Larry's Blend, AJ's VaPer... there's not many aros on the list but I do like Dan aros, FM Cellar and a couple others. 'Bout the only gooper I enjoy occasionally is PS Cherry BonBon and I usually mix that with a coin of rubbed out GH Cherry Twist and let it dry for the better part of a day.

The heel of every pipe I smoke is swampy looking, even smoking very slowly and starting with very dry tobacco. I'm starting to think 'smoking to ash' is just a myth I have a hard time believing I'm smoking too fast. Yesterday I got over 2 hours out of 2 coins of bullseye flake and there was still some left in the bottom of the pipe when I got back to the shop and had to abandon it to get some work done. I shook it out and it was starting to get pretty wet tho.

[KungFumeta]

if you sre willing to soil yourself and your pipe with drugstore burley.

GOOD GOD!!! Blasphemy!!!
I'm definitely not one for OTC aromatics, but were it not for Carter Hall and The Holy Prince Albert I very much doubt I would have stuck with the pipe. Even now that I'm venturing into VApers and English blends I still get full enjoyment from those two...

[KungFumeta]

The heel of every pipe I smoke is swampy looking, even smoking very slowly and starting with very dry tobacco. I'm starting to think 'smoking to ash' is just a myth I have a hard time believing I'm smoking too fast. Yesterday I got over 2 hours out of 2 coins of bullseye flake and there was still some left in the bottom of the pipe when I got back to the shop and had to abandon it to get some work done. I shook it out and it was starting to get pretty wet tho.

Exactly my position, I do admit I might be able to smoke slower even though I routinely get 45 minutes to an hour from a medium sized bowl, which seems to be the norm for those of you getting fine white ash.
I put it down to my packing still being severely lacking.

[gigmaster]

There are some blends that can bite. Usually, blends that contain a lot of Yellow Virginia can bite, some viciously. After age 13, I pretty much lived on my own, without much supervision. Another kid tried to turn me on to Camels, but I never liked cigarettes. But I liked the idea of smoking, and I considered myself sort of a modern Huckleberry Finn, so I spent $4.00 ( I think) on a Missouri Meerschaum Legend at a local 7-11, and found a tobacco that smelled good through the package. I started out smoking Middleton's Apple because I loved the taste and aroma, but it bit like a Pit Bull on steroids. I just went around with a sore mouth and tongue for a few years. I didn't know any better. Then after I was drafted and sent overseas, I couldn't get the Apple anymore, and started smoking other blends, and I met other pipe smokers (I was a loner growing up, for the most part, and no other kids my age smoked pipes, that I knew of...). I found out that tobacco wasn't supposed to bite.

Another blend I have always had a problem with for biting is anything with peach flavoring. I don't know why, but even Peach Smokers Pride used to tear me up.

One thing that might help is to try smoking a Missouri Meerschaum corn cob pipe. If the tobacco bites in one of these, then it will bite in anything, because nothing smokes better than an MM cob, at any price.

Just ny 2 cents worth.....

[Mister Moo]

GOOD GOD!!! Blasphemy!!!
I'm definitely not one for OTC aromatics, but were it not for Carter Hall and The Holy Prince Albert I very much doubt I would have stuck with the pipe. Even now that I'm venturing into VApers and English blends I still get full enjoyment from those two...

(Me too. )